Traditionally computing devices have been networked with one another via wired connections. While networking computing devices affords users substantial benefits, running network cables to each computing device can be difficult to accomplish. Therefore, more recently wireless networking has become popular. Wireless networking allows computing devices to communicate with one another via radio frequency (RF) waves. No network cables have to be run to the computing devices.
Some of the more popular wireless networking protocols are IEEE 802.11b, commonly referred to as Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11g, and IEEE 802.11a. Whereas the 802.11b and the 802.11g protocols provide for the communication of data at a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) band or 2.4-2.5 GHz, the 802.11a protocol provides for the communication of data at a frequency of 5.0 GHz band, or 5.0-6.0 GHz. Differences in how the protocols operate allow them to provide wireless data communication at different speeds. For instance, the currently most popular 802.11b protocol achieves data rates of up to 11 megabits per second (mbps), whereas the 802.11g and 802.11a protocols can achieve data rates of up to 54 mbps.
A difficulty with all types of wireless communication is that they are susceptible in varying degrees to wireless noise. Wireless noise is generally and non-restrictively defined as undesired signals occurring on the same frequency over which data is being communicated. The wireless noise may not represent any type of data at all; for example, microwave ovens commonly emit radiation at the same frequency of 2.4 GHz at which the 802.11b and the 802.11g protocols communicate. Liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors can also emit wireless noise at harmonics inclusive of the 2.4 GHz frequency, affecting wireless data communication. The wireless noise may alternatively represent data being communicated in accordance with a different communication scheme than a desired protocol. For instance, computing devices wirelessly communicating in accordance with the 802.11b or the 802.11g protocol may have to vie for the 2.4 GHz frequency space in competition with cordless phones that commonly communicative over the 2.4 GHz frequency, too.
The 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g protocols, among other wireless data protocols, have built-in safeguards to ensure that data is still wirelessly communicated in the face of all but the most severe wireless noise. Different strategies are used to counteract wireless noise. First, each data packet sent wirelessly has to be acknowledged by the receiving device. If the sending device does not receive the acknowledgment from the receiving device, it considers the data packet in question “dropped,” and resends the data packet. Second, the rates at which data is wireless communicated can be lowered as a response strategy to wireless noise. For instance, the 802.11b protocol allows computing devices to lower the transmission rate from the maximum 11 mbps to a slower, but more noise-tolerant, 5.5 mbps, or to even lower transmission rates.
These and other strategies for handling wireless noise are disadvantageous, however, because they reduce wireless throughput, or performance, slowing down the entire wireless network. In the former case, for instance, having to resend dropped packets reduces the total number of data packets sent within a given time period. In the latter case, the decrease in throughput is more explicit, in which the transmission rate is lowered from the maximum rate to a lower rate that is more tolerant of noise. For these and other reasons, then, there is a need for the present invention.